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A Survey on Virtual World International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, Volume 5, Issue 4, April 2015 1 ISSN 2250-3153 A Survey on virtual world Amandeep Kour Assistant Professor, “Dept. of Computer Sciences and Engineering” Mahant Bachittar Singh College of Engineering and Technology, Babliana, Jammu (J&K) India Abstract- Virtual reality is simulated reality. Computers an architect, engineer, or interior designer working without a introduced us to the virtual world. In the virtual world one can graphics workstation. In the last years the stormy development of assume any identity and no one will be the wiser. Such identities microprocessor technology brings faster and faster computers to are called ‘avatars’. This is part of its attraction. But it also has the market. These machines are equipped with better and faster its dangers. Many youngsters today live more in the virtual world graphics boards and their prices fall down rapidly. It becomes than in the real world. This has made sociopaths out of some of possible even for an average user, to move into the world of them. They are so used to interacting with people in the virtual computer graphics. This fascination with a new (ir) reality often world that they no longer know how to interact with real people. starts with computer games and lasts forever. It allows to see the Virtual worlds like Second Life are becoming important tools surrounding world in other dimension and to experience things for, among other activities, socialization, social networking, that are not accessible in real life or even not yet created. entertainment, collaboration, and business development. These Moreover, the world of three-dimensional graphics has neither environments offer information systems researchers a unique borders nor constraints and can be created and manipulated by opportunity to study how these environments are built and ourselves as we wish – we can enhance it by a fourth dimension: managed by operators, how they are used and misused by users, the dimension of our imagination. and the impact that they have on users, communities, But not enough: people always want more. They want to step organizations, and societies at large. The paper provides an into this world and interact with it – instead of just watching a introduction to this topic and offers a survey on virtual worlds picture on the monitor. This technology which becomes based on insights offered by several academics and practitioners overwhelmingly popular and fashionable in current decade is who are actively involved in building, managing, and using called Virtual Reality (VR). The very first idea of it was virtual worlds. presented by Ivan Sutherland in 1965: “make that (virtual) world in the window look real, sound real, feel real, and respond Index Terms- virtual worlds, synthetic worlds, multi-user virtual realistically to the viewer’s actions” [Suth65]. It has been a long environments, online games, virtual reality, human computer time since then, a lot of research has been done and status quo: interaction, Second Life, research frameworks,v-CRM" (Virtual “the Sutherland’s challenge of the Promised Land has not been Customer Relationship Management). reached yet but we are at least in sight of it” [Broo95]. Let us have a short glimpse at the last three decades of research in virtual reality and its highlights [Bala93a, Cruz93a, I. INTRODUCTION Giga93a, Holl95]: hree-dimensional virtual worlds, also called synthetic • Sensorama – in years 1960-1962 Morton Heilig created a T worlds, are multimedia, simulated environments, often multi-sensory simulator. A prerecorded film in color and stereo, managed over the Web, which users can “inhabit” and interact was augmented by binaural sound, scent, wind and vibration via their graphical self-representations known as “avatars.” In a experiences. This was the first approach to create a virtual reality virtual world, the users, represented as avatars, experience others system and it had all the features of such an environment, but it as being present in the same environment, or “being there was not interactive. together” even though they are geographically distributed. Users • The Ultimate Display – in 1965 Ivan Sutherland proposed converse in real time through gestures, audio, text-based chat and the ultimate solution of virtual reality: an artificial world instant messaging communication (e.g. Meadows, 2008). These construction concept that included interactive graphics, force- virtual worlds support communication and collaboration more feedback, sound, smell and taste. effectively than two-dimensional web-based environments by • “The Sword of Damocles” – the first virtual reality system extending the user’s ability to employ traditional communication realized in hardware, not in concept. Ivan Sutherland constructs a cues of face-to-face interactions such as gestures, voice, having device considered as the first Head Mounted Display (HMD), visual presence and mutual awareness in real time, and sounds, in with appropriate head tracking. It supported a stereo view that a way that two-dimensional (web-based) environments do not was updated correctly according to the user’s head position and (Bronack, et al., 2008; Eschenbrenner, et al., 2008). Today orientation. virtual worlds are being used in many applications: education • GROPE – the first prototype of a force-feedback system and training, social networking, entertainment, gaming, realized at the University of North Carolina (UNC) in 1971. marketing, and commerce. • VIDEOPLACE – Artificial Reality created in 1975 by Nowadays computer graphics is used in many domains of Myron Krueger – “a conceptual environment, with no existence”. our life. At the end of the 20th century it is difficult to imagine In this system the silhouettes of the users grabbed by the cameras www.ijsrp.org International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, Volume 5, Issue 4, April 2015 2 ISSN 2250-3153 were projected on a large screen. The participants were able to These environments have been designed for a variety of interact one with the other thanks to the image processing functions as well as a diverse set of target markets. Environments techniques that determined their positions in 2D screen’s space. such as Second Life, There, and Active Worlds are general • VCASS – Thomas Furness at the US Air Force’s purpose and targeted to adults, while other environments such as Armstrong Medical Research Laboratories developed in 1982 the Disney’s Virtual Magic Kingdom (VMK.com), General Mill’s Visually Coupled Airborne Systems Simulator – an advanced Millsberry, and Sulake Labs’ Habbo Hotel are focused on flight simulator. The fighter pilot wore a HMD that augmented specific ages, demographics, and functional applications. the out-the window view by the graphics describing targeting or Virtual reality (VR) is not a new concept. The origins of VR optimal flight path information. can be traced as far back at least as “The Ultimate Display” [85], • VIVED – Virtual Visual Environment Display – a seminal paper by Ivan Sutherland that introduced the key constructed at the NASA Ames in 1984 with off-the-shelf concepts of immersion in a simulated world, and of complete technology a stereoscopic monochrome HMD. sensory input and output, which are the basis of current virtual • VPL – the VPL company manufactures the popular Data reality research. The following challenge was set: Glove (1985) and the Eye phone HMD (1988) – the first The screen is a window through which one sees a virtual commercially available VR devices. world. The challenge is to make that world look real, act real, • BOOM – commercialized in 1989 by the Fake Space Labs. sound real, and feel real [85]. BOOM is a small box containing two CRT monitors that can be Sutherland’s challenge, which can be summarized as viewed through the eye holes. The user can grab the box, keep it offering presence simulation to users as an interface metaphor to by the eyes and move through the virtual world, as the a synthesized world, has become the research agenda for a mechanical arm measures the position and orientation of the box. growing community of researchers and industries. The • UNC Walkthrough project – in the second half of 1980s at motivation for such a research direction is twofold. From an the University of North Carolina an architectural walkthrough evolutionary perspective, virtual reality is seen as a way to application was developed. Several VR devices were constructed overcome limitations of standard human-computer interfaces; to improve the quality of this system like: HMDs, optical from a revolutionary perspective, virtual reality technology opens trackers and the Pixel-Plane graphics engine. the door to new types of applications that exploit the possibilities • Virtual Wind Tunnel – developed in early 1990s at the offered by presence simulation. NASA Ames application that allowed the observation and investigation of flow-fields with the help of BOOM and Data 2. What is Virtual Reality (VR)? What is Not Virtual Reality? Glove. Virtual Reality (VR), also known as 'artificial reality', • CAVE – presented in 1992 CAVE (CAVE Automatic 'artificial worlds', 'virtual worlds', 'virtualities', is a fully- Virtual Environment) is a virtual reality and scientific immersive, absorbing, interactive experience of an alternate visualization system. Instead of using a HMD it projects reality through the use of a computer structure in which a person stereoscopic images on the walls of room (user must wear LCD
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